NEW AD: Climate Power Education Fund Calls Out Big Oil & Gas CEOs for Collecting Record Profits While Hiking up Gas Prices for American Families
WASHINGTON, DC — As Americans travel for the holiday season, Climate Power Education Fund launched a new national ad calling out big oil & gas CEOs for collecting record profits while hiking up gas prices for American families. The spot, running on national cable, in Washington DC and digitally, points to recent reporting that through the first nine months of the year, oil companies have made $174 billion in profits for themselves while prices at the pump remain high for drivers.
“While fossil fuel CEOs and lobbyists make massive profits, families across the country are paying a high price at the pump and in-home energy bills,” said Lori Lodes, Climate Power Executive Director. “The industry is volatile, unpredictable, and lobbyists and their allies have stacked the deck to pad the pockets of oil and gas CEOs. Building a clean energy future means millions of new good-paying jobs powering innovations in clean electricity, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency that can save households hundreds of dollars each year.”
Working families’ pocketbooks continue to be hit hard this year by unreasonably high oil and gas prices. These costs and the solutions to addressing inflation are top of mind for many Americans. Data For Progress recently compiled public sentiments and found that:
- Nearly all voters (87 percent) are concerned about energy prices increasing over the winter months. In this context, policies that would invest in reducing energy bills are hugely appealing: voters agree by a +36-point margin that we should be investing in cheaper, more reliable domestic clean energy production rather than continuing our reliance on fossil fuels. That total includes 63% of Independents and a plurality of Republicans at 49%.
The burdens of the high fuel costs Americans are experiencing are not shared equally: a new study authored by researchers at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability found that white neighborhoods are more likely to have weatherized homes compared to Black and Brown communities. Without the energy savings of a weatherized home, Black and Brown families are stuck paying more for energy even as they breathe air that’s more polluted than white families’.
According to the International Energy Agency, consumers will continue to face volatility in energy markets until governments make the investments in clean energy necessary to meet the Paris climate targets.